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Accordingly, when he was nearly forty years of age he went
through a varied course of study and experiment, in order to
enlarge and clarify his view of things. One of these experiments
was an unhappy marriage-undertaken merely that he might
have a salon-which, after a year's duration, was dissolved by
mutual consent. The result of his experiments was that he
found himself completely impoverished, and lived in penury
for the remainder of his life. The first of his numerous writings,
Lettres d'un habitant de Geneve, appeared in 1802; but his early
writings were mostly scientific and political. In 1817 he began
in a treatise entitled L'Industrie to propound his socialistic
views, which he further developed in L'()rganisateur (1819), a
periodical on which Augustin Thierry and Auguste Comte
collaborated. The first number caused a sensation, but it brought
few converts. In 1821 appeared Du systems indnstriel, and in
1823-1824 Catéchisme des industries. The last and most important
expression of his views is the Nouveau Christianisme
(1825), which he left unfinished. For many years before his
death in 1825 (at Paris on the 19th of May), Saint-Simon had
been reduced to the greatest straits. He was obliged to accept
a laborious post, working nine hours a day for £40 a year, to
live on the generosity of a former valet, and finally to solicit
a small pension from his family. In 1823 he attempted suicide
in despair. It was not till very late in his career that he
attached to himself a few ardent disciples.

As a thinker Saint-Simon was enti-rely deficient in system,
clearness and consecutive strength. But his great influence
on modern thought is undeniable, both as the historic founder
of French socialism and as suggesting much of what was afterwards
elaborated into Comtism. Apart from the details of his
socialistic teaching, which are vague and unsystematic, we find
that the ideas of Saint-Simon as to the reconstruction of society
are very simple. His opinions were conditioned by the French
Revolution and by the feudal and military system still prevalent
in France. In opposition to the destructive liberalism of the
Revolution he insisted on the necessity of a new and positive
reorganization of society. So far was he from advocating fresh
social revolt that he appealed to Louis XVIII. to inaugurate
the new order of things. In opposition, however, to the feudal
and military system, the former aspect of which had been
strengthened by the restoration, he advocated an arrangement
by which the industrial chiefs should control society. In place
of the medieval church the spiritual direction of society should
fall to the men of science. What Saint-Simon desired, therefore,
was an industrialist state directed by modern science in which
universal association should suppress war. In short, the men
who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are
entitled to bear rule in it. The social aim is to produce things
useful to life. The contrast between labour and capital so much
emphasized by later socialism is not present to Saint-Simon,
but it is assumed that the industrial chiefs, to whom the control
of production is to be committed, shall rule in the interest of
society. Later on the cause of the poor receives greater attention,
till in his greatest work, The New Christianity, it takes
the form of a religion. It was this development of his teaching
that occasioned his final quarrel with Comte. Previous to the
publication of the Nouveau Christianisme, Saint-Simon had not
concerned himself with theology. Here he starts from a belief
in God, and his object in the treatise is to reduce Christianity to
its simple and essential elements. He does this by clearing it
of the dogmas and other excrescences and defects which have
gathered round the Catholic and Protestant forms of it. He
propounds as the comprehensive formula of the new Christianity
this precept-“ The whole of society ought to strive towards
the amelioration of the moral and physical existence of the
poorest class; society ought to organize itself in the way best
adapted for attaining this end.” This principle became the
watchword of the entire school of Saint-Simon.

During his lifetime the views of Saint-Simon had very little
influence; and he left only a few devoted disciples, who
continued to advocate the doctrines of their master, whom they
revered as a prophet. Of these the most important were
Olinde Rodrigues, the favoured disciple of Saint-Simon, and
Barthelemy Prosper Enfantin (q.v.), who together had received
Saint-Simon's last instructions. Their first step was to establish
a journal, Le Producteur, but it was discontinued in 1826. The
sect, however, had begun to grow, and before the end of 1828,
had meetings not only in Paris but in many provincial towns.
An important departure was made in 1828 by Amand Bazard,
who gave a “ complete exposition of the Saint-Simonian faith ”
in a long course of lectures at Paris, which were well attended.
His Exposition de la doctrine de St Simon (2 vols., 1828-1830),
which is by far the best account of it, won more adherents. The
second volume was chiefly by Enfantin, who along with Bazard
stood at the head of the society, but who was superior in metaphysical
power, and was prone to push his deductions to

extremities. The revolution of July (18 30) brought a new freedom
to the socialist reformers. A proclamation was issued demanding
the community of goods, the abolition of the right of inheritance,
and the enfranchisement of women. Early next year the school
obtained possession of the Globe through Pierre Leroux (q.'v.),
who had joined the school, which now numbered some of the
ablest and most promising young men of France, many of the
pupils of the École Polytechnique having caught its enthusiasm.
The members formed themselves into an association arranged
in three grades, and constituting a society or family, which lived
out of a common purse in the Rue Monsigny. Before long,
however, dissensions began to arise in the sect. Bazard, a man
of logical and more solid temperament, could no longer work in
harmony with' Enfantin, who desired to establish an arrogant
and fantastic sacerdotal ism with lax notions as to 'marriage and
the relation of the sexes. After a time Bazard seceded and many
of the strongest supporters of the school followed his example.
A series of extravagant entertainments given by the society
during the winter' of 1832 reduced- its financial -resources and
greatly discredited it in character. They finally removed 'to
Ménilmontant, to a property of Enfantin, where they lived in a
communistic society, distinguished by a peculiar dress. Shortly
after the chiefs were tried and condemned for proceedings
prejudicial to the social order; and the sect was entirely broken
up (1832). Many of its members became famous as engineers,
economists, and men of business.

In the school of Saint-Simon we find a great advance on the vague
and confused views of the master. In the philosophy of history they
recognize epochs of two kinds, the critical or negative and the
organic or constructive. The former, ~in which philosophy is the
dominating force, is characterized by war, egotism and anarchy; the
latter, which is controlled by religion, is marked by the spirit of
obedience, devotion, association. The two spirits of antagonism
and association are the two great social principles, and on the de' ree
of prevalence of the two depends the character of an epoch., The
spirit of association, however, tends more and more to prevail over
its opponent, extending from the family to the city, from the city to
the nation, and from the nation to the federation. This principle of
association is to be the keynote of the social development of the
future. Under the present system the industrial chief exploits the
proletariat, the members of which, though nominally free, " must
accept his terms under ain of starvation. The only remedy for this
is the abolition of the law of inheritance, and the union of all the
instruments of labour in a social fund, which shall be exploited by
association. Society thus becomes sole proprietor, in trusting to
social groups and social functionaries the management of the various
properties. The right of succession is transferred from the family
to the state. The school of Saint-Simon insists strongly on the
claims of merit; they advocate a social hierarchy in which each man
shall be placed according to his capacity and rewarded according to
his works. This is, indeed, a most special and pronounced feature of
the Saint-Simon socialism, whose theory of government is a kindrof
spiritual or scientific autocracy, degenerating into the - fantastic
sacerdotal ism of Enfantin. With regard to the family and the relation
of the sexes the school of' Saint-Simon advocated the complete
emancipation of woman and her entire equality with man. The
“ social individual " is man and woman, who are associated in the
exercise of the triple function of religion, the state and the family. In
its official declarations the school maintained the sanctity of the
Christian law of marriage. Connected with these doctrines was their
famous theory of the “ rehabilitation of the flesh, " deduced from the
philosophic theory of the school, which was a species of Pantheism,
though they repudiated the name. On this theory, -they rejected the
dualism so much emphasized by Catholic Christianity in its penances